I’ve just encountered what I’m going to call a “life choice.” And I rechose.
A life choice refers to coming upon an existential fork in the road and taking one road as opposed to another. The choice affects our whole life.
Rechoosing refers to the action of consciously reappraising a former choice and choosing again. The emphasis is on the word conscious. A purely perfunctory rechoosing will have little or no effect on behavior.
Moreover, a rechoosing made at the intellectual level, as in having a good idea, would also have little effect. Or at the experiential level, as in it felt good to do. I mean at the realizational level – which is the same as saying that I was fully present and available to the act of rechoosing.
I don’t think I can remember a time in my life when I’ve done that.
The insight came after a two-step process. It was initially triggered by my friend, Len, asking me: “Would you rather be right or happy?”
Two days later, under the influence of a second friend – let me call her Serena – I realized in a flash how I had spent my life.
I couldn’t see what it was about the way I was living my life that was leaving me feeling unsatisfied, isolated, and joyless these days.
At the same time, my friend Serena enters into each day and every situation happy. This of course caused me consternation years ago.
Watching the stark contrast between us, the other day, I saw what it was that differentiated us: I had made the life choice to be right and she had made the life choice to be happy.
After choosing a lifetime of being right, is it a surprise that I should end up where I am? I watch myself judging, blaming, and complaining.
Serena’s modeling of happiness had me get it about myself. It woke me up.
I simply watched her one day and got what it was that she does. She comes in happy, is clear about her boundaries, and lights everyone else’s fire before she leaves.
I was working the side of the street that turned on being right and nothing was working out the way I wanted it to. Serena was working the other side and everything she did worked out. The contrast was too stark for me not to get it about myself.
She helped me to see that I’ve misunderstood happy people. I put “happy” down as pretending that things were fine when they’re not, positive thinking, going unconscious, dittsy, etc. I saw happy people as refusing to face the mess the world was in.
In fact they’re the few who are bringing love, joy and lightness to the situation, which is dearly needed. And Serena is in touch with what’s happening in the world. It does not matter. She still brings happiness with her when she enters a room.
I now see the situation more as doing what will make us – and others – happy. Will it make me happy to attack this person? Will it make me happy to feel suspicious? Will it make us happy to make ourselves right and others wrong? The answer I got, after years of unconsciously behaving the opposite way, was no, on all scores.
Serena modeled the divine quality of happiness. She showed that a lightworker, by her mere actions or behavior, could awaken another.
I suggest that that shows the value of a lightworker demonstrating a divine quality. It shows how we can work our effect on another, have an impact on them, to the extent of waking them up to something big about the way they’re being, just by the way we’re being.
So I’ve rechosen. I now want to be happy, rather than right. Immediately I hear AAM, in my imagination, saying “happy and right. It’s additive.” And with a chuckle: “But you may put happiness first.”